Tag: ChoicePoint

Cutely buried in the 18th paragraph in a story about Alberto Gonzales on Sunday was a slyly-worded updated confession by the New York Times that, in 2004, the Bush Administration leaned on its editors to spike a story about illegal invasions of citizens’ private records (“data mining”). The Times editors smothered the story. They finally ran it – a year later – after Bush was safely re-elected.

As a journalist, this makes me want to throw up.

For two reasons: First, while The Times was covering up Bush’s KGB-style data-mining operation, the Palast team was revealing its secrets. We published confidential FBI memos detailing horrific schemes for illegal spying using Bush’s favored contractor, a company called ChoicePoint Inc.

The second reason The Times ‘confession’ makes me ill: While the publishers at the Paper of Record were counting their millions, the Palast Investigative Fund was slowly going broke.

Well, we’ve made it: Last Friday, the main-stream US media, through the venerable PBS program ‘NOW’, finally broadcast our reportage on the “caging” of voters, a story we first broke 3 years ago. BEFORE the 2004 election.

We’ve made it in another way: Friday was also the day I was informed that the Palast Investigative Fund was dead broke, technically bankrupt, with way less than zero in the account.

Bluntly: if we don’t get some help, and fast, we’re sunk. We are throwing staff overboard and halting some operations while we seek funds to keep afloat.

I’m pleading with you to do three things:

1. Watch PBS ‘NOW’ on voter ‘caging’. Then, if you think our work is important… 2. Donate at least $100 (tax deductible) to the Palast Investigative Fund. With heartfelt gratitude, I’ll send you a personalized, signed copy of Armed Madhouse (hardbound or paperback, your choice), or the DVD “Big Easy to Big Empty,” the untold story of the drowning of New Orleans.

(For $250, I’ll sign and send a whole BOX of Raw Journalism: 2 books: Armed Madhouse and Impeach the President, 2 DVDs: Big Easy to Big Empty and American Blackout, the Audio Book Armed Madhouse and the Spoken Word CD Live from the Armed Madhouse). Or simply make an open no-gift donation for a sum of your choice. (All options and many other signed items can be found at the Palast Investigative Fund Homepage.) …more

Itâ€™s a grim day for the Republic when John Ashcroft is the last line of defense of our liberties.

I didnâ€™t know if I should barf or scream or set my hair on fire after watching former Deputy Attorney General James Comey describe how Bushâ€™s Chief of Staff Andrew Card and his Tonto, Alberto Gonzales, tried to pry the Constitution from Ashcroftâ€™s cold dying hand.

There was that tongue again. When the President lies he’s got this weird nervous tick: He sticks the tip of his tongue out between his lips. Like a little boy who knows he’s fibbing. Like a snake licking a rat.

In his State of the Union tonight the President did his tongue thing 124 times — my kids kept count. …more

In Mexico, populist candidate Andres Manuel LÃ³pez Obrador released a preliminary video yesterday of what he says proves he was cheated out of last week’s presidential election. In a video shot in the central state of Guanajuato, the footage shows an apparent supporter of Calderon’s National Action Party stuffing a ballot box on the day of the elections. Investigative reporter Greg Palast travels to Mexico City to report on the disputed election. [read transcript]

The election race south of the US border is officially too close to call. Now, where have we heard that before?

As in Florida in 2000, and as in Ohio in 2004, the exit polls show the voters voted for the progressive candidate. The race is "officially" too close to call. But they will call it - after they steal it.

Friday, June 30 — GEORGE Bush’s operatives have plans to jigger with the upcoming elections. I’m not talking about the November ’06 vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too). I’m talking about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.

It begins with an FBI document marked, “Counterterrorism” and “Foreign Intelligence Collection” and “Secret.” Date: “9/17/2001,” six days after the attack on the World Trade towers. It’s nice to know the feds got right on the ball, if a little late.

What does this have to do with jiggering Mexico’s election? Hold that thought. …more

There are kooks and cranks and crazies among you who think that George Bush lost the 2004 election. For example, there’s an audio blog going around with TV star Larry David reading a story called,”Kerry Won,” a chapter in a book called, Armed Madhouse. I know, because I wrote it.

How you go about jerry-rigging a democracy has a lot to do with two other, seemingly unrelated stories, in the news this week: illegal surveillance of our phone records and the new border war against immigrants. …more

I know you’re shocked — SHOCKED! — that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That’s nothing. And it’s not news. This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration’s Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI — though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB. …more

The US civil rights commission was yesterday investigating allegations by the BBC's Newsnight that thousands of mainly black voters in Florida were disenfranchised in the November election because of wholesale errors by a private data services company. ...more